The bulk of the roughly 32,000 IAM-represented United workers just rejected a new proposed contract. These are passenger service workers who do check-in, customer service, and jetbridges. And these are fleet service ‘below the wing’ workers who handle checked bags, cargo, and equipment on the ramp.
United Airlines has had a rocky time with labor relations, getting its various work groups under new contracts. Flight attendants just ratified a deal after first rejecting one that their union had negotiated. And the International Association of Machinists reports that after voting completed on tentative agreements covering about 32,000 workers on Friday, just four smaller groups ratified:
- Fleet Technical Instructors
- Maintenance Instructors
- Security Officers
- Storekeepers
While the three larger groups rejected the contract: Fleet Service, Passenger Service, and Central Load Planners
Critics of the deal argued that the union simply accepted United’s money offer while giving up or failing to improve the things workers actually care about: healthcare, scope, retirement, scheduling protections, and enforceability of the contract.
- The view among rank and file seeemed to be that the union didn’t really negotiate and accepted United’s terms.
- Small language changes in the deal move in the airline’s favor, including on mandatory overtime and shift bidding
- Healthcare was a top concern but the union pushed the issue to the next contract. Annual health cost increases offset the wage increase, so quality of living doesn’t improve.
- Lower-seniority workers defined contribution retirement, and can reduce contributions if union pension costs rise.
- But the biggest concern seems to be over scope. United gets to avoid using IAM workers at airports with fewer than 35 flights per day, while American has to stay in-house at 20 and Southwest at under 10.
- United has a separate set of ‘United Ground Express’ workers who are cheaper, and they’re represented by the same union. IAM members see the union protecting work and jobs for those members at their expense.
- Meanwhile, the contract provides industry-leaving wages but only for half a year. They lock in a deal through 2031 with 3% annual increases, which they see as falling behind.
- While flight attendants got big ratification bonuses, making up for lost pay since their last contract became amendable over 5 years earlier, they get just $125 per year of service while starting pay remains as low as $20 per hour. Their contract has only been amendable for 14 months, rather than over five years, but they aren’t getting retro pay.
As one member put it to me,
United is now among the most profitable airlines, yet it offered to keep the worst profit sharing plan out of all the majors. The employees feel that the profits came from their hard work and wanted a profit sharing plan comparable to AA or DL.
They also wanted displacement protections against any technology or AI. And wanted to scale back the health care annual cost increase cap from 9.25% downward.
The union already said that the rejection wouldnt add value to a second tentative and sounds like a management mouthpiece, so it’s very hard to see where management ends and union begins.
This seems to be as much a beef and rejection of the union as the airline, with members feeling that IAM isn’t representing their interests.
IAM argued that a no vote wouldn’t actually produce more money and could just mean delay. Now that the contract was rejected by several work groups, they say they’ll survey members over their priorities and seek new negotiations.
So while United has its pilots and flight attendants under contract, they continue to have outstanding risks not just with fleet and passenger service but also with the Teamsters representing their 10,000 mechanics and those negotiations continue to frustrate. We can expect higher labor costs at United going forward, but in the meantime there remains operational risk until these get locked down.
I guess beggars can be choosers
Revolt? Easy Ayn.
This is just part of the process. These excellent employees will get the industry-leading deal they deserve.
“This seems to be as much a beef and rejection of the union as the airline,…”
I wish they would learn the problem isn’t the “union”, it’s, as always, government involvement in unions. In a free society, most of these problems would never exist.
” The employees feel that the profits came from their hard work and wanted a profit sharing plan comparable to AA or DL”
No one and I mean no one wants a profit sharing plan like AA employees unless they like pennies on the dollar
United is reaping record profits. On time and baggage metrics are at all time highs. They continue to low ball. Shareholders as always come first. The employees can’t strike, this is their only leverage.
UA continues to profit off the backs of its employees and its incompetent unions that will not secure the contracts those employees deserve.
The profit sharing at AA is disappointing and very disturbing to say the least.
@NNo wayiwill postmyname – the formula is good, there’s just very little profit
Well, the resident Gadfly of the board seems to have taken a vacation or perhaps actually has to work today. What a pleasant, refreshing surprise! This of all topics would be subject to endless, annoying pontification.
LOL,. Gotta a kick outta the assumed typo in bullet point #7 /8 …, “industry leaVing” wages …
I have no respect & love lost for the IAM as a previous dues paying member who was “thrown under the airBUS” by their negotiated contract & approved by so-called union brothers & sisters….
Completely agree with the statement that it’s’ hard to see where the dividing line is between union & airline management. Finally in retrospect it all was for the better for it forced me to leave an industry that I so passionately loved and moved on to a more financially secure future ( decent pension instead of one being frozen during bankruptcy ) Good luck & my sympathies to the UA ground staff …
The FA contract gave them up to 9 weeks of vacation, whereas the TA agreements for these groups maxed out at 6 weeks. The groups haven’t had a “New” contract since 2008 – ALL of the contracts since then have just been amended from this 2008 agreement.
The union has bandaged contract for almost 20 years. This is the first time the IAM has negotiated a full (NEW) contract. It has been said – here in this article and on social media – the union leadership just accepted the UA proposal as gospel. Now the arrogant IAM leadership equates any further talks as rearranging “Deck Chairs” (Titanic reference).
You mention the UGE in this article. How can the UA represented employees trust their union when at the end of the day – UA closed stations and put in a lower waged work groups, UGE? At no loss to the IAM on members or their dues.
Lastly, executives in UA leadership receive many valuable perks beyond the scope of contracted employees and Kirby’s salary went up 83% just this year alone.
To the AA profit sharing comments, AA has an excellent profit sharing program for employees on par with DL. AA just doesn’t make a profit so there’s not much to share. those commenters have no clue what they are spouting off about.
Hopefully profits will improve.
On the subject, always vote down the first offer….yawn.
Gary, I honestly thought a post like this would’ve brought out more frothing anti-union rage from the typical crazies (@Mike P, @Mantis). Glad to see some actual reasonable reactions from some who are actually involved (@rebel, @Pilot93434). It’ll never be perfect, and clearly there’s a lot of room for improvement. The games being played by management to hide profits by siloing credit card revenue and by creating subsidiaries with the regionals are two farces that should be called out.
@D Fray — Mama finally let me out of the basement, so I went on an extended ‘grass-touching’ journey. (Is that what you want to hear?)
@D Fray — Or, is it that I live ‘rent free’ in your head? Man, it’s empty up here… at least it’s free! So generous. Thanks again!
Regarding the AA Profit sharing comments. The reason IAM members are saying they want what AA and DL have is because AA and DL have the same formula to determine profit-sharing payout. UA is unique in that they don’t look at total annual profit, but instead YoY profit growth. So, if UA has a smaller profit than the year prior, there is no payout, whereas at AA and DL, their would be a payout since their formula looks at total profit vs YoY growth. AA doesn’t pay out as much because their profit is smaller, they have a larger workforce, and include wholly-owned subsidiary employees in the profit sharing plan (DL only pays mainline employees profit-sharing). IAM members want the formula
@M. Casey. UGE has not taken over a single station from Mainline United in their 11 year history
@Lisa Johnson. United Airlines outsources 28 stations in 2015. The same year UGE was established. BUF, ABQ, FSD, SLT, BNA were stations outsourced and are now UGE stations.
@outsourced employee. None of those stations transitioned from United to UGE and that is a FACT!
UGE took over for the the FBO in BUF. ABQ was Menzies. FSD was Skywest. Im assuming you mean STL. For them ATS handled the ramp before UGE. ATW is still mainline. UGE took over for Swissport in BNA. Good try though!